Forvo

Forvo is a site I heard about recently which contains recordings of tens of thousands of words, phrases and names in over 70 languages. The site is free to use and anyone can submit recordings, which means that their quality varies quite a bit. It looks like it has potential to become a useful language learning tool.

The problem with the concept of “words” in isolation is that it’s almost impossible to know what one means. The difference between writing in Russian “slova” and “slova” is the difference between “book’s” and “Books.” Which one is meant?
Also, there were no definitions that I could see. I like the idea, though, it just needs more refinement.
Whole sentences would be even better. And I don’t mean just the usual “How are you” type sentences, but just every day conversation fragments. Now THAT would help a lot.

Was the site sl-o-o-o-o-w for anyone else? It took forever to get from one page to another and I’m using my work network (not my lousy home dial-up connex’n).

One thing I like about it is the idea of getting sound snippets from a wide variety of speakers in diverse locations and putting together a pronunciation profile of sorts for those words (in isolation). If they could geo-map the submissions (optional, of course!) something cool could emerge.